Perceptions
by Lady Siren Jade Riddle
Summary: My take on the way Sam really found out about his father's 'profession', or, more accurately, how John and Dean found out that Sammy knew. Slightly AU First of the Revelations Verse


Warnings: Mentions of violence, mild language

Rating: T

Summary: My take on the way Sam really found out about his father's 'profession'. Or, more accurately, how John and Dean found out that Sammy knew. Slightly AU

Notes: I love reveal scenes, and this kind of popped into my head the other day… What would happen if Sammy knew all along?

Disclaimers: If you recognize it, it's not mine.

**IXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXI **

"_**Logan Family Inexplicably Slaughtered: All Doors Locked from the Inside"**_

Six year old Sam Winchester read through the article. The family of three had been killed in their own home, their throats slashed and they had been disemboweled. The paper also recounted the same thing happening to the family that had lived in the same house 13 years before. The article was circled in red marker and left on the counter where Dad would see it in the morning.

Sam smirked, their dad would read it, give Dean a proud look when his back was turned, thinking _he_ had done it, and go back to his coffee. Tomorrow morning, they would pull out and head to Twin Oaks, Wisconsin. It was rather amusing how the two tried to keep their Hunter lifestyle from Sam.

Apparently they were forgetting just how smart the youngest of the family was. I mean, heck, he'd been reading at two! They never realized, either, that he remembered the night that the werewolf John had been tracking two years had broken into the car where the two boys had been sleeping. He had watched as their father dragged the beast from the car and slaughtered it with a silver knife.

He had felt both of their eyes on him the next day, but he hadn't said anything about it. They thought he just didn't remember it, or that he must have thought it a nightmare, but in truth, he had been thinking about it non-stop. His silence was telling… if they had known that, at the time, anyway. His over-intelligent mind was analyzing all the details he could and had, astonishingly, come to the correct conclusion.

_His daddy hunted the bad things, sometimes his big brother helped him, and Sammy wasn't supposed to know._

So he started researching as best he could given his age and the fact that they were almost always on the move. When they stopped somewhere long enough for the boys to go to school, Sam used the school library to read up about the monsters. He knew that the stuff in stories couldn't be entirely correct. After all, they were sensationalized and retold millions of times before ever being written down, but that didn't stop him from trying to pick out the truth among the myths.

Then, he got his hands on his father's journal. It had been a rather illuminating read, and it hadn't stopped his quest for more information. It just made it easier to find the right stuff. Since then, he had been helping as well as he could, considering he wasn't supposed to know about it.

He'd leave articles out, or leave a book open to the right page, or place the certain items he knew would be needed with the weapons his father and brother would already have secretly set aside. It wasn't as much as he wanted to do, but he couldn't give away the fact that he already knew. Not until they finally told him, anyway.

**IXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXI**

Nine year old Sam Winchester shook his head as his dad and 13 year old big brother came tumbling through the door of their motel-of-the-week. Both of them looked like they had been through the ringer with black eyes and more than their fair share of cuts and scrapes.

Sam just sighed and started patching them up. He'd started learning first aid about a year ago, after a particularly bad hunt had left the elder Winchesters with some rather nasty wounds that eventually required a trip to the hospital.

He'd started asking pointed questions around the same time, hoping to get them to spill so that he wouldn't have to work in secret anymore. Dad had also started his combat training, claiming that it was time he learned to defend himself. Sam had rolled his eyes and pretended exasperation, but in reality, he had been excited, hoping that they were finally going to come clean.

Unfortunately he had had no such luck.

As he slathered some burn ointment on his brother's hand, pretended not to notice the scent of gasoline and smoke. Simple salt and burn, then. Not that those were ever actually simple. He had been worried that it had been another werewolf. The lunar pattern and the way the victims' bodies had been shredded had lead to that assumption, along with the fact that it all happened in the same stretch of woods. Thankfully, it was just your run of the mill vengeful spirit who had the odd quirk to kill on the full moon.

Tomorrow night, he'd look over the papers his dad would, of course, bring home. The man had stopped looking for his own hunts once he'd realized that 'Dean' was finding them for him. Sam knew the man had considered it good practice and good work, and internally puffed with pride whenever they went on a hunt that Sammy, himself, had marked… which was more often than not, lately.

Sam still thought it mildly amusing that the two apparently never talked about it. Dean didn't realize that Dad thought he was a much harder worker that he actually was, and Dad never realized that Dean wasn't the one leaving out the books, and circled papers. If it wasn't so _freaking frustrating_, Sam would be priding himself on how well he had hidden his knowledge and help so far. Well, ok, he _was_ kind of proud of how good he was at this, but it was still frustrating to have to.

He'd give them another year. If they didn't tell them by his tenth birthday, he was going to confront them about it. This was getting ridiculous.

**IXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXI**

Sam sighed, one more month. He was ten in one more month, and they still hadn't said anything. He lay down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He was also getting annoyed at his brother and father's hard headedness in regards to this particular hunt. He knew what they were hunting. The evidence was all there. Hell, he's even left the book out to the correct page, but his father hadn't even glanced at it before hiding it away, worried that Sam had seen it.

He had just about had it. The being they were hunting wasn't particularly dangerous, with what it was doing at the moment, anyway, but it could quickly become so, if something wasn't done about it. Sidhe weren't something to mess around with, especially if you didn't know what you were doing. Even low level ones like this.

Hearing the front door open, and the rest of his family return, Sam rolled over and pretended he was asleep. Sure enough, a minute later, the door opened a crack as one of the two looked in on him. It closed a moment later, and the two in the other room started talking in low voices.

Rather stealthily, thanks to Dad's training, Sam crept to the door to listen.

"I just don't know what the hell is going on in this town, Son. Something's here, but I can't figure out what. It started out simple… little accidents, broken legs, some bumps and scrapes, but it keeps escalating. Someone was actually killed today! Then the way it happens! It's getting ridiculous… a freaking piano dropped on the poor bastard's head." John sighed.

"Honestly, Dad, I'd say it was a Trickster, but none of these guys were di-er- a-holes, then there's the women who've been hurt. Not only that, but it's not confined to one area. This is happening all over town."

"I know, I just don't…" Sam heard John walk over to the fridge. Then he heard the snap of a beer top and rolled his eyes. "I'm going to have to call Bobby. Maybe he'll know."

"Yeah, maybe." Dean sighed, then. "I wish I could figure it out thought."

"Well, you can't figure them all out, kiddo. You do some awesome work, finding us our hunts and leaving out information, but this one's just elusive."

Sam could feel the confusion rolling from Dean and had to hold in a laugh and a relieved sigh. Hopefully, this was it. "What are you talking about? I haven't found _any_ of our hunts… and _what_ information?"

Now the confusion was in John's voice, "You always circle articles in the newspapers. Have been for about four years now… and the way you'll leave the books open to the pages we wind up needing. Never took you for the research type, son, but I'm proud of the work you've been doing."

"Dad…" Dean's voice was worried, "I've never circled any articles in newspapers for us, and I rarely do research…"

"_Well, then where the hell does all that come from?"_ Dad's voice was slightly shaky.

"I don't know… you don't think… _Sammy_?"

"I don't see how… He doesn't know about any of this. We've made damned sure he he's safe and innocent."

"Well, it is about time we told him, Dad. The kid's a freaking genius; he's going to figure it out eventually."

"Well we'll deal with it when the time comes-"

"No, dad, like tomorrow. The kid needs to know. Sammy's tough, he can take it."

"_Dean-"_

"No. It's time. He's almost ten. Besides, everything will be easier once he knows. I want to keep him innocent, too, but he's more mature than anyone else his age, and he's smart. If we don't tell him, and he figures it all out on his own, he's going to feel like we betrayed him." Dean's voice was firm and Sam grinned. That's his big brother, always standing up for him. It was true, though, that if he hadn't figured it all out already, he really would have felt betrayed.

"I… You're right." John sighed, "It is time." Sam heard him sit down at the table. "Get some sleep. We'll tell him in the morning, and then we'll call Bobby and see what he says about this." Sam grinned and crawled back in bed.

"Thanks, Dad. Goodnight."

Sam once again feigned sleep as his brother came into the room. He heard some shuffling around his brother stripped, and felt a light kiss fall on his forehead before his brother fell into his bed on the other side of their room. Both soon fell asleep, the morning's discussion on their minds.

**IXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXI**

The next morning, Sam sat at the table, eating Lucky Charms, as he watched his family wake up. As soon as he heard them stirring, he started the coffee pot and smirked, knowing it was going to be an interesting morning.

Dean stumbled out first, and Sam just handed him the bowl of cereal he had already prepared for him, and the milk. "Coffee's on. Should be ready in a couple of minutes." Dean grunted, and Sam took that to mean, 'Thanks! You're the best little brother in the world!'

Sam read one of his school books while he waited for their dad to get up. A few minutes later, he heard the shower turn on and nodded to himself. After ten minutes he got up and fixed his brother a cup of coffee. A spoonful of sugar and a dollop of milk, just the way he liked it, and sat it next to the still sleepy teenager. Dean blinked then grabbed it like it was life itself.

Snickering at his brother, Sam poured a second cup for his father, as the shower shut off. Black and bitter. He set the cup in the empty place on the table, knowing his dad wouldn't eat breakfast, before returning to his book. A couple minutes later, John, hair still wet but looking a little more awake than Dean, sat in the chair provided and picked up his coffee.

"Thanks, Sammy."

"Mmmhmm." Sam continued to read as the two eldest started to wake up. He glanced up after a few minutes to see Dean giving his father a look, the both of them finally alert. John glared at his oldest son before sighing and looking to Sam.

"Look, Sammy… You're brother and I have to talk to talk to you."

Sam looked over the top of his book, before hiding his smirk with it again, "It's a Sidhe."

The men blinked, taken aback. "What's a she?" Dean asked, confused.

"The thing in town you're hunting. And it's not a '_she'_ it's a _Sidhe_. Same pronunciation, different spelling. Sidhe are Fae...Faeries. The one we're dealing with in this town is a Dark Court Trickster, also known as a Puck. They usually take the form of a small child or an unusually marked animal. It's probably denning in that big oak tree in the park. I noticed a shimmer around its root structure when we went there the other day, so it's probably glamoured. It's more powerful during the night, so I would suggest trapping it during the day. Consecrated iron rounds should do it, but make sure you hit it in the head."

John sputtered, eyes wide, "I… what… how?"

Dean's jaw clicked shut, and he smirked, "Well, dad, I told you he'd figure it out eventually." He was incredibly proud of his little brother. The kid was damned smart, and, apparently, sneakier than either of them.

"It's been you, hasn't it? The circled articles, the books left out?" The look on their father's face was priceless, as he put it all together.

Sam grinned, "Yep. I figured it out a few years ago. I've been dropping hints for awhile now, but you two never got a clue. I was going to tell you I knew on my birthday, if you two dummies hadn't told me by then, but when I heard you guys say you were going to tell me this morning, I figured I'd go ahead and clue you in to what we're hunting."

Sam shot their father an exasperated look, "I left that book out the other day for a reason, but you didn't even glance at it. It would have told you what we're dealing with, and then you could have known what to look for in your other books."

Torn between anger at Sammy for looking at things he knew were off limits, proud that his son had fooled them and helped them this long, and annoyance at him getting one over on them, John didn't know what to think. He started to laugh. It was deep, loud, and hearty.

The two brothers looked at him in surprise, before smiling. Once he trailed off, John pulled his youngest to him and hugged him hard, kissing him on the forehead. "I'm proud of you, Sammy. More than you can imagine." Sam beamed and hugged his father back.

Dean shook his head and smirked, "I guess we need to get a pucking she."

"Dean!" Sam and John yelled.

'_Well, at least that wouldn't change_.' Sam thought, amused. '_My brother will always have a smart mouth._'

_FIN_

**IXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXI**

I appreciate all constructive criticisim.

Please R&R!

-Siren-


End file.
